Tuesday, January 22, 2008

A Girl Discovers Clampett

I got a frantic call the other night from Kali. She had just seen Baby Bottleneck for the first time and was raving about it. She explained every detail to me.

It reminded me of how excited I was when I first discovered Clampett cartoons. They were like caricatures of cartoons. They fit the description of what regular people would say cartoons are: "Crazy stuff where all the characters can stretch and do nutty things - impossible stuff."

The funny part is Kali, being a girl found something most folks don't usually notice in Bob's work. She goes on and on about how cute it is!

12 comments:

I always thought Clampett's love of and the way he excelled at doing 'cuteness' was obvious(along with his love of distortion, music, speed...well, a lot of things)! He always simultaneously spoofed and celebrated cuteness in his design and characters. The gremlins? Tweety? Baby Bugs & Infant Elmer? "Kitty Kornered"? Red Riding Hood from Book Revue? A billion other designs(and more importantly-how he used them)? Do most guys miss this aspect in his work?!

But anyway, your point is still valid: Kali is right as always. She has excellent instincts. Eh, could be a girl thing. : )

I wanted to ask you though Mr. K, I read a while ago about breaking bones in animation as a technique, like bending elbows in the wrong direction for accent and such... and thought that this may be able to help with posing. I cant remember the book or the author but thought maybe you have heard of this? Obviously you do this and maybe its just a point of feeling it out, but thought maybe you have something to say about this with posing ect. Certainly its not useful anywhere... Jimmy the idiot doesnt count tho since he is as bonless as a dislodged and wet chicken breast

It links to many clampett cartoons and projects, you probably have everything, but it could be useful to people who havent seen the cartoons, i hope WB doesnt find out.Theres also stop motion animation and other weird stuff suposedly made by clampett, i didnt know he did such stuff it doesnt say so in wikipedia, and its really cool, you should make a little post about the other stuff he made besides looney tunes or even a bio on him. Well i hope the link is useful.

I also wanted to ask you about the animation industry, is there any future for real cartoons? what can a aspiring cartoonist/animator expect or do in the bussines...i live in mexico but i want to go to the states and study...i want to make cartoons, i am disapointed at the cartoons we get today but reading your blog makes me feel theres no room anymore for real cartoons. im lost, what should i do?

I remember when I first discovered Clampett cartoons. I was a young teenager, staying up late watching cable, and I flipped past the Cartoon Network. I saw some old black and white Daffy cartoon on (I think it was the one where he was in bed with the goat and trying to sleep). The look of it struck me as so strange and different from any Looney Tunes cartoon I'd seen before that I had to watch it. It actually made me laugh! It basically changed my whole opinion of Looney Tunes (at a rather young age I decided they were kind of boring, but keep in mind my only exposure to them at that point was the 1950s stuff they showed on TV, with the violence cut).

I still remember how amazing was for me to discover some of those almost-impossible-to-see-while-you-are-watching frames in Clampett shorts. But, I think John K said something about the way you could "sense" those frames even though you can´t really "see" them in normal speed playback. I have posted some of my favorite ones in my blog (which, by the way, is in Spanish, for I´m argentine).http://rnenada.blogspot.com/2007/11/imagenes-que-usted-rara-vez-volver-ver.htmlhttp://rnenada.blogspot.com/2007/11/tiempos-dorados-de-la-animacin.html